Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Bears made it to the Sweet 16 for the first time in women’s basketball program history. They are now 4-8 overall in the NCAA Tournament.

The Bears finish the 2008-09 campaign with a 27-6 overall record, tying for the most wins in a season in school history.

UConn’s largest deficit of the season came when Cal went up by eight points with 6:38 to play in the first half.

UConn’s 24-point scoring margin against the Bears fell well under the Huskies average of 31.6 points through the entire season and 33.5 points in this year’s NCAA Tournament.

The 35-33 halftime score was Connecticut’s closest since the 34-34 tie in the Nov. 16, 2008 game versus Georgia Tech.

Walker has scored 20 or more points in six of seven NCAA Tournament games in her career. She has now scored 155 points in NCAA Tournament and has led the Bears in scoring in each of the seven NCAA Tournament games in which she has played.

Cal shot 100 percent (11-11) from the free-throw line against the Huskies. Cal shot 80.4 percent from the charity stripe in the three NCAA Tournament games.

The Bears made five or more three-pointers in each of this season’s NCAA Tournament games. Against UConn, Cal made eight three-pointers.

With 21 points against the Huskies, Ashley Walker finished her Cal career with 2,142 total points for second place on the all-time scoring list behind Colleen Galloway, who has 2,320. Hampton is in sixth place with 1,588 career points.

Ashley Walker further etched her name into program history with seven rebounds against UConn to bring her career total to 1,117, the all-time most by any Cal women’s basketball player.

Devanei Hampton had a team-high 11 rebounds to move into fourth place on the all-time list with 876, surpassing Teresa Palmisano (874).

Ashley Walker finished her Cal career with an average of 16.48 points per game.

Cal's keys to success against UConn:REBOUNDS: Rebounds will determine this game for Cal. At the half, Cal is outrebounding UConn, 22-19, but it's going to have to be a lot more than that. UConn has nine second-chance points that could have been well avoided with a couple more boards by the Bears on the defensive end.

TURNOVERS: The Bears have nine turnovers, compared to UConn's one. The Bears have lost two possessions on shot-clock violations, much to the UConn bench's elation. The Huskies have 11 points off turnovers, most of which could have been avoided by Cal.

TRANSITION: Natasha Vital has done a great job of slowing Cal's transition, but they need to me slightly more effective here. UConn loves to run an up-tempo offense and force that onto the opposition, but if the Bears can slow it down and play California basketball, they'll have more luck. I could tell twice when the UConn defense was overpowering Cal's offense, and that was when Cal had the two shot-clock violations.

Cal needs to spread the points production around a little bit more. Ashley Walker has 16 first-half points and Devanei Hampton has eight.

This is the second time all season that Ashley Walker has hit two threes. She's 2-2 from beyond the arc so far.

Cal has a better shooting percentage than UConn in the first half - 40.7 percent to 35.9 percent.

UConn has missed five free throws out of its 10. Cal is 100 percent at 6-6 from the charity stripe.

In-Game Blogging Notes:Per NCAA regulation, I'm only allowed to blog five times per half, once at the half and twice per overtime period. Please hit refresh on your browser window to see if there are new updates!

We're now under 20 minutes until game time and fans have well begun to trickle into the Sovereign Bank Arena.

Virginia head coach Debbie Ryan, whom was denied her 700th career win when the Bears defeated the Cavaliers in the second round last week, was one of the first fans in the door.

California Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom was also one of the first to arrive.

Many of the families of the Cal student-athletes have made their way out to New Jersey over the past few days and were at the hotel to send the Bears on their way.

Both teams just left the floor after a half-hour shootaround. Even though Storrs, Conn., is clearly much closer to Trenton, N.J., than Berkeley, the cheers from the Cal fans in attendance equaled that of the UConn contingent.

Rebecca Lobo, who won a national championship with UConn and now commentates for ESPN, is sitting to my right, just a couple feet away. She'll be today's sideline reporter with Debbie Antonelli and Pam Ward on the call. ESPN keeps mentioned how Rebecca Lobo Twitters from the games, which she will be doing today and you can read it here. With her strong UConn allegiance, it will be interesting to see the degree to which it influences her coverage.

For those of you who aren't famliar with Twitter, it's another social networking Website that allows people 140 characters to write something like a status update of their current activities, random thoughts or an opinion. People can follow you on Twitter and read your updates. It's much like a Facebook status update.

For example, mine would read: blogging live from the Sweet 16 in Trenton, N.J., as the Golden Bears get set to take on UConn.

Rebecca Lobo's most recent "twit" was: Getting ready for the Uconn/Cal game. I'll be talking Tina Charles at the top of the show. Last year... timid. This year... unstoppable.

With Cal's head coach Joanne Boyle hailing from nearby Pittsburgh, she'll have a lot of friends and family in the audience today. Her mom greeted the other Cal families in the stands.

Lauren Greif's family has made the trek out, and you can tell by their shirts. The front reads "Oh good Greif" and the back says "L.G. For Three..."

Per NCAA regulation, no one can bring a bottle out on the floor, everyone must put their water into a cup, which this and other signs constantly remind everyone:The NCAA is so organized, they've even got a place for the bus drivers of the team and spirit busses:

As with all of the Cal women's basketball games, you can hear today's Sweet 16 game live from anywhere in the world thanks to Cal's student radio station, KALX 90.7-FM. If you're in the Bay Area, tune your radio dial to 90.7-FM. If you're not in the Bay, go to kalx.berkeley.edu.

I just listened to their pre-game intro, and it could have been professionally done. They'll go on the air at roughly 8:57 PST.

We've safely arrived at Sovereign Bank Arena for the Sweet 16 game vs. No. 1-seeded UConn at noon EST (that's 9 a.m. for the Californians). The team was up early with a walk-through before heading to a filling breakfast at 8:30 a.m. The team and staff had their choice of pancakes, hash browns, pancakes, ham, bagels, and made-to-order eggs.

Once again, the loyal Cal Straw Hat Band and Cal Dance Team were in front of the hotel to send the team on its way with the traditional Cal fight songs. It was a great way to head to the Sweet 16, though I'm sure the other guests in the hotel were not as amused.

It was a quick bus ride from our hotel in Princeton to the arena in Trenton. It's a gray and drizzly day here in New Jersey, which makes everyone glad basketball is an indoor sport.

We've got a little more than an hour until game time. More updates soon.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

As I mentioned earlier, we had two sets of "pressers" as they're known in the biz aka press conferences - one with Joanne Boyle and another with the players. We've posted the quotes on CalBears.com for your reading pleasure.

I grabbed a couple of shots during the open practice. We should hopefully have some professional shots later on today.

The team at practice at Sovereign Bank:Some of the fans on both sides of the court. I thought it was a pretty good turnout! I'm thinking that this arena will be really intimate for the fans that come tomorrow.The bracket with only 16 teams remaining:

Welcome to the official blog for the Cal women's basketball trip into the 2009 NCAA Tournament. The Cal athletic media relations staff will be providing you with updates about your California Golden Bears!